358 
NATURE 
[March 2, 1871 

pendent reading of them, which has since in great part proved 
to be the right one. In 1846 your well-known memoir, ‘On 
the Denudation of South Wales and the adjacent Counties of 
England,’ showed the enormous amount of denudation that the 
Palaeozoic rocks had undergone before the deposition of the New 
Red Sandstone. At subsequent periods you dwelt on the power 
that produced ‘Plains of Marine Denudation,’ a term intro- 
duced, I believe, by yourself, and showed in all cases, by a series 
of true and beautiful sections, how this has operated in planing 
across the older strata, and how valleys had been scooped out 
by subsequent aqueous causes in the great plains so formed. 
Whilst unravelling the complicated interior phenomena of the 
Welsh rocks, you were not unmindful of the very different order 
of phenomena exhibited on their exterior surfaces. Here you 
showed the vast extent and power of ice-action, and what a 
glacier land Wales once was. Reasoning from the present to 
the past, you also boldly pushed your ice-batteries far back into 
geological time, and were the first to bring them to bear on rocks 
of Permian age. That advanced post you long had to hold 
alone ; but other geologists have since followed your lead, and 
we have even lately had evidence in the same direction from 
Southern Africa, where it is asserted that boulders and glaciated 
surfaces have been found at the base of the Karoo formation of 
supposed Jurassic age. You have also held a prominent place 
among those who, by their public teaching, have done so much 
during the last twenty years to advance the cause of our science. 
To myself, personally, whose geological career has run nearly 
parallel in time with your own, it is a source of much pleasure 
that it has fallen to my lot to hand you this, the highest testi- 
monial the Society has to bestow.”—Prof. Ramsay made 
the following reply :—‘‘ Mr. President,—I cannot say whether 
I am more pleased or surprised by the unexpected award to me 
of the Wollaston Medal by the Council of this Society. Pleased 
I well may be, not because I ever worked for this or any other 
honour, but because I feel a sense of satisfaction that the work 
on which I have been engaged for the last thirty years has been 
esteemed by my friends and fellows of the Council of the 
Society so highly, that they have deemed mea fit recipient of 
this honour. It is also a special satisfaction to me that this 
award has been bestowed by the hand of one of my oldest geo- 
logical friends, who is so universally esteemed and beloved, and 
is himself so distinguished a contributor to physical and other 
branches of our science. My first endeavour in geology (the con- 
construction of a geological map and model of Arran) neces- 
sarily drew my attention to the physical part of our science ; and 
when, consequent upon that work, I was, through the interven- 
tion of my old and constant friend, Sir Roderick Murchison, 
appointed by Sir Henry De la Beche to the Geological Survey 
of Great Britain, my whole subsequent life was thereafter neces- 
sarily involved in questions of physical geology, for no man can 
work on or conduct the field-work of such a survey who does 
not, aided by paleontology, necessarily make that his first aim. 
Tf some of my theories, induced by that work, were long in 
being recognised, the recognition has been all the more welcome 
when it came. Probably I never should have been able to do 
what I have done but for the wise example of my old master, 
Sir Henry himself, in his time the best thinker in England on 
the physical branch of our science, and to whose remarkable 
work, ‘ Researches in Theoretical Geology,’ all geologists are to 
this day indebted. The papers which I have written are mere 
offshoots from my heavier work on the Geological Survey. 
Perhaps they are enough for the readers ; but I wish they had 
been more numerous, for I certainly have had many more in my 
mind. Two of these, on old physical geographies of the world, 
I have lately given to the Society ; and if they should be printed, 
T shall be well pleased should they soon or late be found worthy. 
The present physical geography of the world is but the sequel of 
older physical geographies ; and to make out the history of these 
is one or the ultimate aims of geology. These are the subjects 
I have striven to master in part. I consider your award as a 
sign that I have had some success; and if, before I cease to 
work, I have a little more, I may be well content.” —The Pre- 
sident then presented the Balance of the Proceeds of the Wol- 
laston Donation Fund to Mr. Robert Etheridge, F.G.S., in aid 
of the publication of his great stratigrdphical ‘‘ Catalogue of 
British Fossils,” and addressed him as follows :—‘‘Mr. Ethe- 
ridge,—The Council of the Society has awarded to you the Pro- 
ceeds of the Wollaston Fund, to aid in prosecuting your valuable 
work on the fossils of the British Islands, stratigraphically 
arranged. Ir this work, on which you have been engaged during 


the last eight years, and which occupies nine volumes of MS., 
representing as many geological groups, you give the natural 
history lists of each group, and trace the history of each species 
both in time and space. Of the magnitude of the work few 
can have any idea, nor would many have an idea of the marvel- 
lous extent of past life in our small portion of the globe without 
a comparison of our recent fauna with those (necessarily incom- 
plete, because only partly accessible) which you have enumerated 
in your most useful lists. This comparison shows :— 
g 
$3 3 5) is 
dee 8 ae : 
ig 28 2 4 4 2 toa 
Soo F oe a. ise | 
ANS O 42 & &@ RA 
Number of Species 
in the existing fau- = 
naand flora cf Guy OF 278 567 263 15 354 76 1820 3,989 
Britain. - 
Number of Species 
found jossil in Gt. 2574 740 7ogr 815 224 12 172 819 12,453 
Britain 
I trust that this work will not be allowed to remain in MS., and 
that, presuming you will begin with the oldest, we may soon 
look for an instalment in the fauna of the Paleozoic rocks. I 
have much pleasure in presenting you with this token of the im- 
portance which the Geological Society attaches to your labours.” 
—Mr. Etheridge made the following reply :—‘‘I hare great 
satisfaction in receiving from you, Sir, and the Council of the 
Geological Society, the award of the Wollaston Fund, It is 
given for work known to be nearly done, and faith in its com- 
pletion. The time and labour devoted to my book upon the 
*Stratigraphical Arrangement of the British Fossils’ has ex- 
tended over nearly nine years of incessant work, and has been 
an arduous, yet pleasant undertaking, now made lighter by the 
recognition of those who know and value the researches made 
for so extensive a catalogue of the British organic remains, now 
numbering nearly 13,000 species. It is this estimation of my 
labour by the Council and Society that tends to increase the de- 
sire to make my work as perfect as possible, well knowing how 
difficult, if not impossible, it isto do so. This acknowledg- 
ment, Sir, from your hands will stimulate me to finish my re- 
searches into the literature of the British species, and their 
history through space and time throughout Europe.”—The Pre- 
sident then proceeded to read his anniversary address, in which 
he discussed in considerable details the bearing of the recent 
deep-sea dredging operations upon geological reasoning. The 
address was prefaced by biographical notices of deceased fellows, 
includmg Sir Proby Cautley, Sir Frederick Pollock, Mr. Robert 
Hutton, and Prof. Gustav Bischoff.—The ballot for the Council 
and Officers was taken, and the following were duly elected for 
the ensuing year :—President : Joseph Prestwich, F,R.S.. Vice- 
presidents: Sir P. de M. G. Egerton, M.P., F.R.S., Prof. T. 
H. Huxley, F.R.S., Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., F.R.S., Prof. 
John Morris. Secretaries: John Evans, F.R.S., David Forbes, 
F.R.S. Foreign Secretary: Prof. D. T. Ansted, F.R.S. Trea= 
surer: J. Gwyn Jeffreys, F.R.S. Council: Prof. D. T. Ansted, 
F.R.S., Dr. W. B. Carpenter, F.R.S., William Carruthers, W. 
Boyd Dawkins, F.R.S., Prof. P. Martin Duncan, F.R.S., Sir 
P. de M. G. Egerton, Bart., F.R.S., John Evans, F.R.S., 
David Forbes, F.R.S., J. Wickham Flower, Capt. Douglas 
Galton, C.B., F.R.S., R. A. C. Godwin-Austen, F.R.S., J. 
Whitaker Hulke,{F.R.S., Prof. T. H. Huxley, F.R.S., J. Gwyn 
Jeffreys, F.R.S., Sir Charles Lyell, Bart., F.R.S., C. J. A. 
Meyer, Prof. John Morris, Joseph Prestwich, F.R.S., Prof. A. 
C. Ramsay, F.R.S., R. H. Scott, F.R.S., Prof. J. Tennant, 
Rev. Thomas Wiltshire, Henry Woodward. 
London Mathematical Society, Thursday, Feb. 9.—Mr. 
W. Spottiswoode, President, in the chair. Mr. C. R. Hodgson, 
B.A., was proposed for election, and the Rey. J. Wolstenholme 
and Mr. R. B. Hayward, of Harrow, were elected members, 
Prof. Cayley made a communication ‘* On an Analytical Theorem 
from a New Point of View,” and also a second communication 
**On a Problem in the Calculus of Variations.” The problem is, 
z = 4 (3x — y*)y, to find y a function or x such that i 2a¢ = 
maximum or minimum, subject to a given condition if ydx =C 
(the limits of each integral being x, x, where these quantities a re 
